Perfectionnisme

Perfectionnisme (Fr.)/Perfectionism (Eng): a propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.

And as far as my creative endeavors are concerned, I suffer from this.

I don't feel finished with my NaNoWriMo piece although the deadline was four days ago and I hit submit. I feel that it really needs a final chapter, a conclusion. What happened to the woman who found love in Paris? Where is she now? What did it all represent in the grand scheme of things? The ending could be 1-2 pages as far as I am concerned, so the length is not what has been keeping me from the sensation of having crossed the finish line-- perfectionism is.

I have simultaneously been participating in the 12-week Artists' Way program and find it auspicious timing that this week's chapter is all about Perfectionism.

Here is an except from the Artist's Way chapter on Perfectionism, by Julia Cameron:

"Tillie Olsen correctly calls it the knife of the perfectionist attitude in art. You may call it something else. Getting it right, you may call it, or fixing it before I go any further. You may call it having standards. What you should be calling it is perfectionism."

"Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop-- an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole."

"Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough-- that we should try again."

"No we should not."

"A book is never finished. But at a certain point you stop writing and go on to the next thing. That is the normal part of creativity-- letting go. We do the best we can by the light we have to see by."



With that said, I will let the ending be exactly where it is was of the official NaNoWriMo deadline, let go, and find comfort that its unfinished-ness could be the beginning in disguise-- perhaps for a sequel.